A common form of pet bed comprises an upstanding oval or circular wall which surrounds a padded floor cushion. Typically, the wall and floor cushion are formed of foam rubber or a similar material, over which a covering of fabric and/or artificial lamb's wool is installed. Such pet beds are attractive from the point of view that they provide the animal with a sheltered, semi-enclosed bed in which the pet feels secure, and also because the semi-enclosed structure helps to contain hair, etc. to provide a neat and tidy installation for in-home.
A typical pet bed 10 of this general type is shown in FIGS. 1-3 and is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,981. As noted above, the bed has an upstanding oval wall portion 12 which is formed by a foam slab or core 14, and in order to provide more convenient access for the animal, a cutaway portion 16 is formed in the forward side of the wall. The floor cushion 20, in turn, is formed by a flat, oval foam core 22 which abuts the inner surface of the perimeter wall 12 so as to maintain the oval shape of the latter.
As can be seen in FIGS. 1-3, the foam core portions are covered and held together by a fabric cover 24, with a synthetic sheep skin lining 26 on the interior portions of the bed. As can be seen in FIG. 3, the coverings consist of essentially two sheets of fabric. The first, namely the lining 26, extends over the top of the bed and is stitched to the exterior fabric 28 (e.g., cotton flannel or nylon fabric) at a perimeter seam 30 which runs along the entire upper edge of the oval sidewall 12. The fabric forming the exterior covering, in turn, extends down the outside of the wall portion and part way across the bottom of the bed. At the lower edge of the perimeter wall, there is another seam 32 at which the outer fabric layer is attached to the inner layer, the latter being tucked down between the outer edge of the floor panel 20 and the perimeter wall in this area. This forms a pocket or "bag" for holding the foam core 22 of the floor cushion. In the bed which is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,981, an opening 24 with an elastic enclosure band 26 is provided in the bottom fabric panel to permit removal of the bottom cushion core.
The prior art design which is shown in FIGS. 1-3 provides a comfortable and economical pet bed, but exhibits several significant deficiencies in practical use. A first problem is that because the foam core 14 is fully enclosed by the fabric covering which is stitched at seams 30 and 32, it is impossible for the customer to remove the wall core for washing of the fabric cover. Perhaps even more seriously, traditional pet beds of this general type are exceedingly inefficient in terms of the space which is required for storage, shipping, and point of sales display. For example, as can be seen in FIG. 9, when conventional pet beds having this shape are stacked for shipment, they take up an excessive volume of space, which greatly adds to packaging and transportation costs. Moreover, in a retail environment, such beds take up excessive shelf space, and are almost impossible to arrange in a neat, well-organized display.
The bed which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,981 has provided a partial solution to this problem, being that the foam core for the bottom cushion is removable so that the perimeter wall can be flattened for packaging. This solution is not entirely satisfactory, however, because it requires packaging of two separate parts (i.e., the perimeter wall with its fabric covering and the separate bottom cushion), which is both inefficient and unsightly in practice, and which also requires assembly by the customer following purchase.
Accordingly, a need has existed for a pad bed of the semi-enclosed type which collapses so as to afford more efficient storage, shipping, and display of the product, and which does so as a single piece and does not require subsequent assembly by the purchaser. Moreover, there has existed a need for such a bed which permits convenient removal of all of the foam core structures from the fabric cover for laundering of the latter.